Monday, December 5, 2016

I am delighted to announce that we have partnered up with
our pals at Nighthawk to create a very special muddy bundle coming soon to
PlayStation! For the first time ever, Sony players will be able to get their
hands on our all-new Muddy sequel, Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, as well as the
award-winning game that kicked off the whole muddy invasion on PS3 and PSVita
in 2013: Mutant Mudds Deluxe. That’s right! You get both games for the price of
one, marking the arrival of the classic Mutant Mudds Deluxe for PS4 on December 6, 2016. The
Mutant Mudds Double Pack will be available for a limited time only, so act promptly
to take advantage of this very muddy offer. Coming to PS4 and PSVita!

You know something that’s really cool about this offer?
Not only do you get to save a ton of money, you also have the perfect tools to
become the ultimate masher of muddiness. How so? Well, some folks find the
difficulty of the sequel, Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, a real slap in the face
without prior experience of the first game, whereas veterans of the original are
frothing at the mouth for moar spikes! So, if this is your first time battling
the mucky mutants, you can start your adventure with the original game, Mutant
Mudds Deluxe, to hone your skills before bringing the pain to the deplorable dirt
bags in Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, which includes six epic boss encounters
that are sure to test your mettle!

While you count the seconds until this very special
bundle is available, please take a journey with me down muddy memory lane…

It all started in 2011. We were busy working during the
day on projects with publishing partners, while in the evenings we were working
on our passion project. At the time we didn’t even have a name for the game. We
just knew we wanted to make a fun and solid platforming experience that
captured what we loved about the NES and SNES era of gaming.

One of the first features we got working in Mutant Mudds was
the ability to leap between three playfields via launch pads, taking you far
into the background or close-up in the foreground. I remember when we finally got
this working in the game, and it blew me away. I’d always wanted to jump into
the background. To create this effect, it took a combination of many things.
First off, we displayed the far background at a much higher resolution than the
other layers, and from there we scaled up everything 200% to create the middle playfield.
The foreground layer was scaled up 300% from the background source.

Next, we applied a distance tint or fog effect to the
background to push it back a bit. In the foreground we created a silhouette
effect by having all of the platform art transition to black. And the final
touch that really established the sense of depth came from a focus effect that
blurred the layers slightly based on the player’s location. If the player was
in the middle layer, both the background and foreground would be slightly
blurred. When the player leapt into the background, the middle layer became
slightly blurred and the foreground got even more blurred. I hope you agree
that the final results work pretty well to create a fun and unique setting.

To create a sense of progression across the game and also
ramp up the challenge gradually, I spent a great deal of time categorizing the
different types of challenge ingredients that we created for the game and
listing them in order from easy to difficult. This included not only enemies
and hazards, but also small jump, long jump, crouch to avoid projectile, and
many other details of the player experience. I then created a table that listed
all of the challenge ingredients and all of the levels, adding a checkmark
where each element was introduced first to the player. This enabled me to craft
a few things. It helped me set a gradual difficulty curve throughout all of the
levels in the game, and also ensure new elements were introduced to the player
over the course of their experience to keep things interesting. It is this
aspect that makes the original game a great primer before jumping into the
sequel. The sequel is quite different in this regard!

When it came time to create a sequel to Mutant Mudds we
immediately thought of the Lost Levels from the Super Mario Bros. series. The
Lost Levels was the official sequel to Super Mario Bros., released in Japan.
However, it was deemed too challenging for North America at the time and was
replaced by a different “Super Mario Bros. 2” in the form of an adaptation of Yume
Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic.

We loved the idea of what Lost Levels set out to do: give
fans of the original game a literal continuation of the first experience with
increased difficulty. Even though that was the seed of the idea for Mutant
Mudds Super Challenge, we also took the opportunity to add a ton of new content
that we felt would improve the overall experience, such as boss encounters, all-new
level art themes and music, secret passageways, new pick-ups, 20 hidden
playable characters, and unlockable soundtrack (featuring over 40 tunes)!

The biggest difference with Mutant Mudds Super Challenge
is the fact that there really is no difficulty curve. It starts out hard, and
continues to be hard. Even the intro levels pulls no punches. You may die. A
lot. We added a handy death counter so you can keep track of your failures.
Yeah, sorry about that. To counter that slap in the face, you’re able to visit
any of the levels in the main worlds from the beginning. So, if a particular
level is giving you a hard time, you can visit a different level and come back
at a later time with a fresh perspective.

Something that makes our job so satisfying is when we
hear positive feedback from players who are enjoying our games. It is truly a
magical thing. One of the biggest highlights for me was when Shuhei Yoshida
tweeted out his Muddy progress from a flight he was taking from US to Japan.
When the President of Worldwide Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment shares
his enjoyment of your game, you’re having a great day! When Mutant Mudds Super Challenge
released on Vita, he even went on to say it was a sequel to his “favorite
action platformer.” We love you Yosp!

Thank you all for your support. I hope you enjoy the
special bundle we have put together for you. Please share your experience with
me on twitter. You can find me here: https://twitter.com/JoolsWatsham.
Peace!